Aerodynamics: Charged Aircraft

Beyond the sound barrier, the main
obstacle to commercial supersonic flight is the miles-wide swath of
broken windows, cracked plaster, frazzled nerves and aching eardrums
that might be left behind by sonic boom. Resigned to it, airlines are
planning either routes over water and desert or subsonic speeds over
populated areas. Either solution could cut deeply into the
time-distance economies that could otherwise be gained by flying huge
planes faster than the speed of sound.

Now it appears that operators of supersonic transports may have a
happier choice. On the basis of preliminary experiments, two scientists
at California's Northrop Corp....